Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1130

New Testament 153

    Matthew 15:32-39 Mark 8:1-10   I have absolutely no explanation for the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes narrated in these passages.   But, to me, that unaccountable miracle isn’t the most important thing here.   What really strikes me is the claim that the God of heaven and earth cared about [Read More...]

“Religion Poisons Everything!” (17)

    England’s medieval Canterbury Cathedral would have been so much nicer if it hadn’t been religious!    

A principle for Mother’s Day and every other day

    “You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.” Ralph Waldo Emerson    

New Testament 152

    Matthew 15:29-31 Mark 7:31-37   This particular passage occurs only in Matthew and Mark, but it’s in the spirit of John, in a way:  Characteristically, John refers to the miracles of Jesus as semeia, or “signs.”   They’re surely not unimportant in themselves, of course, because of the direct impact they have on [Read More...]

UVU’s Matthew Holland takes a stand, and catches flak for it.

      John F. Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for Profiles in Courage, a collection of eight essays on historical examples of senatorial moral heroism that had been written by his speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen.   Increasingly, it requires similar courage in academia and other walks of life to publicly dissent from The [Read More...]

“No Pre-Columbian Writing”?

    A nice and characteristically on-target little piece (in his series of posts on alleged “howlers” in the Book of Mormon) by my friend and former Maxwell Institute colleague Matt Roper:   http://etherscave.blogspot.com/2015/0...    

The expensive comedy of the United Nations

    Will Rogers used to wonder why people objected to politicians.  “After all,” he was fond of saying, “we have the best politicians money can buy.”   It’s a slightly different point, but I sometimes wonder why some conservatives want to stop U.S. funding of the United Nations.  (America picks up 20% of the [Read More...]

BYU does EXTREMELY well in a report just issued by the Brookings Institution

    Thanks to Kent Stephens for bringing this striking item to my notice:   http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-av...   The Brookings Institution, which is located on Embassy Row in Washington DC, is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious “think tanks.”    

Appalling tyranny in Wisconsin

    This chilling article is a tad on the long side.   But you need to read it.   I think you’ll find it horrifying — and I think that you should be horrified, whatever your political party, both in the sense that you should know about these things and in the sense that [Read More...]

“Religion Poisons Everything!” (16)

    If Christopher Hitchens was right, that “religion poisons everything,” New York City would be a better place if St. Patrick’s Cathedral didn’t exist.